Scottish Cancer Registry

Description

The Scottish Cancer Registry is part of the Public Health & Intelligence Unit of NHS National Services Scotland. The Public Health & Intelligence Unit comprises the Information Services Division and Health Protection Scotland. Cancer registration in Scotland evolved from a scheme initiated in 1936 by the Radium Commission to follow up patients treated for cancer. National coverage of Scotland was achieved by 1947, and five regional population-based cancer registries were established in 1958. In the late 1990s, the five regional registries were merged into a single national population-based cancer registry covering the whole of Scotland.

The Scottish Cancer Registry publishes data regularly on cancer incidence (and mortality), and periodically on survival, as well as prevalence, lifetime risk estimates, and projections of cancer incidence:

The data are also used for a wide variety of purposes which include: public health surveillance; health needs assessment, planning and commissioning cancer services; evaluation of the impact of interventions on incidence and survival; clinical audit and health services research; epidemiological studies; and providing information to support genetic counselling and health promotion.

The Scottish Cancer Registry participates in a number of international collaborative studies, and cancer registration data for the whole of Scotland have been included in the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) monograph, Cancer Incidence in Five Continents from Volume IV (1973-77) onwards.